


Empty Promised Land

by Iggytheperson



Category: Dangan Ronpa: Another Episode
Genre: characters to be added upon appearance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-28
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-02-23 04:30:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 15,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13182387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iggytheperson/pseuds/Iggytheperson
Summary: The story of a girl who loved none and was loved by none.





	1. These Grey Walls

**Author's Note:**

> Each chapter of this story will be covering a section of Monaca's life,
> 
> Starting from the cold, empty beginning.

Monaca’s family hates it when she smiles. The look they give her makes it feel like there’s something wrapping around her throat. She wishes it would just suffocate her already. But that never happens. Instead, her family just keeps looking at her with those awful faces.

“You don’t deserve to live” The faces say. She wishes she’d never been alive in the first place.

She smiles anyways. Because when she smiles it makes her family miserable. She can make them miserable, and that means that she has a little bit of control. She doesn’t have to just sit and take it without being able to do anything. Just a tiny little bit, she’s able to fight back. Cause them pain. Get back at them, just a little bit. Monaca lives for that little bit of power. So she smiles and laughs around the house, getting glares that make her want to curl up in a ball and die, but also getting the satisfaction of pissing everyone off. It’s not like she has anything better to do with her time. All the hand-me-down toys she has from Haiji are boring.

That changes one day when, on her eighth birthday, she’s given Haiji’s old chemistry kit. They’re either making fun of her or trying to get her killed, giving her a box full of cracked, nearly broken beakers and a mix of chemicals clearly unsuitable for children. She plays with it anyways. It’s the most fun she can ever remember having. Sure, it was hard to sneak the bandage box out of the cupboard so she could treat her new cuts every five minutes, but watching the chemicals swirl around and turn into vapor and explode is a fun reprieve from her everyday hell. One time, she made a really huge explosion that blew up the beaker. Haiji had rushed into the room, face filled with a disturbing glee, only for it to be wiped of his face and replaced with immense disappointment when he saw that she was okay.

Nobody in Monaca’s family smiled. Not like the happy families in the sitcoms or the couples passing on the streets. Papa had this thing he did where the corner of his mouth tugged up a little bit, when another business went bankrupt or something, but that didn’t really count and he rarely made that face around Monaca anyways. Haiji fake-smiled when he was nervous. He laughed a lot then, too. Monaca thought it was weird. Haiji also had a weird sort-of smile like Papa. Not anything that looked like a smile, but something that gave off the impression that Haiji was happy nonetheless. Sometimes, he looked at Monaca like that. She’d be lying if she said it didn’t scare her.

Monaca sometimes wondered if her smile looked like theirs. Probably not, they were actually happy when they made their not-smiles. Monaca wondered what she looked like when she was playing with her chemistry set. Monaca decided to stand in front of the mirror and check. The smile she gave her family looked normal, like the face you would see on a kid anywhere. Monaca closed her eyes and tried to think of happy thoughts. What were happy thoughts though? Kitties? No…pretty flowers? No, none of those things seemed happy, even though that’s what people always said were happy thoughts. Happy, happy...Blowing up Haiji’s room with her chemistry set! Monaca was sure she was smiling now. She opened her eyes. Monaca looked…scary. Like a ghost girl from one of those movies that Haiji and his friends like. She didn’t want to smile anymore. She got away from the mirror and back to her room.

Her chemistry wasn’t making her feel any better. Any time that it started making her happy, she remembered what her smile looked like. Monaca didn’t know what else to do, so she started wandering around the house. Papa had left a blueprint on the coffee table. What a terrible design! Monaca could do way better than that! Monaca went and grabbed a piece of paper for herself and fixed the stupid machine design. Just as she was finishing up, Papa came through the door. He stared at her in disbelief for a few seconds before walking over and ripping the paper out of Monaca’s hands.

“What in the blazes is this?” He asked, baffled, but with an interest that Monaca didn’t miss.

“I fixed it for you Papa!” She answered, putting on the biggest, most innocent looking smile she was capable of. He stared at her for a few seconds before crumpling up the paper and telling her to go to her room. He didn’t notice her watching from around the corner as he straightened out the paper again and slipped it into his briefcase.

Later that night, Monaca was lying on the floor, crying out in pain because she’d accidentally called Haiji big brother. Most of the pain was in her legs. She mumbled about them a bit.

“What was that?” Haiji growled at her from the other side of the room where he’d strolled uncaringly. Monaca suddenly had another good idea. 

“I-I can’t feel my legs.” She cried, holding her legs as still as possible as Haiji stalked back over to her.

“Wh-what the hell are you talking about!? Of course you can!” He didn’t sound sure of what he said. In fact, he sounded terrified. He kicked at her, trying to get a knee jerk reaction. Monaca held them back with all the willpower she had.

“W…What the fuck!? I d-didn’t hit you that hard! Shit, SHIT! DAD! GET IN HERE!” Haiji’s was getting so freaked out that Monaca had to refocus her willpower into keeping her laughter back. Papa rushed through the door, and Monaca got to watch as Papa’s expression went from one of irritation to pure horror in just a few seconds as Haiji stumbled over his words trying to explain what happened.

Monaca has a wheelchair now. The way her family looks at her now is nice. They feel horrible. And they feel afraid, she realizes. Afraid that Monaca will let the walls come crashing down and that all the world will know that they’re monsters. They’re terrified when they look at her now, and it’s the greatest catharsis Monaca has ever felt. 

Monaca has the robotics branch now. It’s now one of her favorite pastimes, making incredible robots that put the entire world to shame. She feels like a queen, lording her amazing power over everyone from the inconvenient throne that gave her so much more than she expected it to. No more pain, only fun as she rises leagues above Haiji and laughs at him from the light that her new gift has shone on her. She’s better than him. She’s better than all of them. She just didn’t get to realize it before now because everyone was too stupid to see how great she was! But now, she has power. The power to make all the idiots around her aware of how amazing she is!

…How amazing she is? No that wasn’t right. Papa was just happy that she was making him money. Haiji was just jealous because he’s useless, not because she’s amazing. But she’s a genius isn’t she?

She’s a princess…right? No, Monaca was just deluding herself. Those people didn’t think she was amazing. They thought she was pitiful. That was where her power came from. Pity. The power to make people help you because they think you’re too pathetic to do it yourself. People were being nice to her because she seemed weak and pretended to be nice. Not because she was amazing. Nobody cared how many world-changing inventions she could make. They just felt bad for her because she couldn’t walk. It was almost insulting. People looked at her with nothing but pity in their smiles and it made her want to stand up and scream that she was no one to be pitied. But pity was what protected her from being hit and screamed at. So she stayed in her protective cage of pity and screamed only to herself.


	2. The Tragedies of Hope's Peak Elementary

Monaca has four allies. She doesn’t think friend is the right word. Books and things say that friends are people you feel a connection to, people you care about. She doesn’t feel either for them, but they clearly feel that way about her, so she has to use something a bit stronger than ‘acquaintance’ to describe them.

Their leader is a boy who seems to have picked all of his personality traits out of anime characters, standing to bravely face any threat head on with gusto. He’s not a very good liar. Monaca is sure that the only person who really believes that is him. He’s a coward. A weak, pathetic coward who tells himself he’s brave because he has nothing else to believe in. It’s pitiful to watch, so Monaca plays along with his fantasies of being able to protect all of them. She wouldn’t trust him to protect her shoes.

Their Priest is a strange, strange boy in a way that is a little freaky to Monaca. He’s twisted his own brain around so that he likes being hated. Monaca almost wishes she was able to do that. Everything would be so much easier, so much more bearable. She wouldn’t have to smile. She could just be her disgusting self and when everyone glared at her it wouldn’t hurt at all. Monaca is jealous. It’s petty, but Monaca thinks she might actually hate him. Some ugly part of her just wants to yell at him about how pathetic he is for hiding in an imaginary world like that, lying to himself like that. But no, she didn’t have the liberty to say what she wanted. So she just watched and poked fun at him with everyone else from reality as he sat in his stupid little bubble.

Everyone else included a girl who loved pink, cute things and wore a mask even thicker than Monaca’s. Monaca can’t tell what she’s thinking. She’s the only person Monaca’s ever met who wasn’t an open book. She tries to tell herself that it doesn’t scare her. There are times that Kotoko will look at her as though the girl can see through *her*, and it’s scarier than anything Haiji could ever put her through. She reassures herself, saying that even if Kotoko can see through her, even if she attempts to overthrow Monaca’s control, she won’t be able to. Because Monaca can break Kotoko with one word, and Kotoko can’t do that to her. At least, Monaca doesn’t think that she has a word like that. Even if she did, Monaca doesn’t think Kotoko would be able to figure out what it was. Monaca isn’t that transparent.

Nagisa is the epitome of what people call book smart. He knows every useless fact that’s ever been written in a book, and has never seen the real world in his life. The real world isn’t like the lab rat experience that he lives through. Or is it? Maybe it is, a little bit. If only because there’s something of higher power than them, looking down on them all and laughing as they writhe around in pain. Nagisa probably wouldn’t think so, though. Since he’s never seen the real world, he thinks it’s better than where he is. It must be nice, not having to see all the ugliness out here.

Fairytales were made to make people complacent, lies like “people are inherently good” and “modern society has progressed and there is less war and suffering than before” fall into that category. Things people are taught to believe in order to keep society functioning, because the sociopaths who are sitting at the top wouldn’t have their kingdom if the whole world killed itself. Because there’s really no point in existing after you’ve seen the truth of this world, is there? 

She tells herself it’s just a prank. She isn’t that weak, not like them. She isn’t going to actually kill herself. 

She tells herself this, even on the roof and as Masaru counts down with a faint, undeniably scared voice, and as she leans forward to push herself off. She’s holding on to Kotoko and Nagisa that it actually hurts. She supposes that it might be hurting them too, but she doesn’t think it really matters any more.

And then, Monaca meets a goddess.

“If you don’t want it, give it to me.” She tells Monaca, and Monaca finds herself doing so. She hadn’t been planning on throwing it away in the first place, she wasn’t that weak, but still she gives it to the goddess anyways. Because that’s surely what she was, right? She came up here, and despite the fact that she was blatantly, heartlessly manipulating suicidal children, Monaca felt the overwhelming urge to throw herself at this woman’s feet. It had to be magic, real magic, that was leading her and the others into the back of the goddess’ truck.

The more time passed, the more amazing powers the woman showed off. Monaca watched in baffled amazement as geniuses and mercenaries kneeled before her. Because they loved her. She walked around maskless, barring her disgusting flaws to the world, and the world loved her. Big Sis Junko, the girl who could have the world at her feet without lifting a finger. Without lying. She was the most amazing person in existence. 

And then it was revealed to Monaca why this goddess had come to save her. To build her weapons, help her make an army for her empire. Because she could she Monaca’s genius, that Monaca could be useful. In the eyes of her very own savior, she had worth. Monaca had never felt so happy in her life. She wouldn’t let her big sis down if it killed her. She had a purpose to her life again. She would do anything to fulfill it. Not that building an army of killer robots was anything out of Monaca’s range of expertise.

“Monaca, are you….threatening me?” Her father asked. She was, but it was worth a shot to try and convince him otherwise.

“Jeez, Papa. It’s not like that, just think of it as a…business opportunity.” She said slyly. If she could get Papa on board, Big Sis would be so proud of her! And so, with that glorious image in mind, she kept twisting her father’s arm. He caved, and the praise Junko gave her could’ve fueled Monaca for the rest of her life. 

Or at least, it might’ve if Big Sis Junko hadn’t gotten murdered.


	3. A New Beginning, A New Ringleader

Junko Enoshima died, and Monaca’s world disappeared. All of a sudden, there wasn’t a thing in the world that felt like it mattered anymore. There was nothing. Everything just felt...empty. 

She’d heard that sometimes other people would hurt themselves, and then they would be able to feel things again. It didn’t make her feel any better. No matter what she did, her big sister would never come back. The only person who had ever seen Monaca’s value was gone. And if nobody was there to see it, was it even really there? She supposed it didn’t matter anymore.

“We can’t give up, we can’t abandon the hopeful dream that Big Sis Junko gave us!” She tells the others. She doesn’t know what stirs her to say it, she doesn’t really see a point in trying to help anyone now. But in the back of her head, she feels an idea forming. Sure, why not listen to that little voice for now? It’s not like she has anything else to believe in.

The voice leads her party to the back of an alleyway, over a dead body. Over somebody that they just killed. Masasru and Jataro look like they’re about to cry. Instead, their faux-leader starts cheering.

“All right, we did it! Next, the Demon Boss, and then the world!” He cheers, rallying everyone to cheer with him. For some reason, she finds herself answering his pitiful call. There’s no hesitation from the others after that, and soon there’s a small group of children in an alleyway chanting “pa-ra-dise!” and dancing around a corpse. Somehow, Monaca feels a little less hollow.

The next day, it’s decided that the party will split up and individually go to take down each of their Demon Bosses.

Everyone offers to come and help Monaca, because they don’t think she’s capable of taking care of herself. She’s just a pitiful girl in a wheelchair, after all. She turns them all down of course, because she has her magic to protect her and she’ll be fine. They back off then, but the looks on their faces scream of how little faith they have in her.  
She’ll show them.

A knocking sound comes from the door of Papa’s office. Haiji opens it to see who’s there. He’s greeted with three claws stabbing into his arm and a swarm of Monokumas storming into the room. Monaca watches from the security room and feels a genuine smile creep across her face as she watches the bane of her existence bleed out and die. It’s beautiful, watching Haiji run away screaming and crying like a wounded animal trying to escape from a predator. 

Junko was right, this is fun. 

Very, very fun.

She’s so caught up in how hilariously pathetic Haiji looks that she almost doesn’t hear the door open behind her.

“...Monaca?” comes a quiet, shaken voice and Monaca switches her smile over as she turns to face Nagisa.

Nagisa clearly hadn’t had the easy time that she had. He was drenched in blood, shaking like a leaf and standing in a way that indicated that his leg had been injured. He looks like he’s about to cry.

“Hi, Nagisa. Are you ok? Was your fight really hard?” She asks, calmness in her voice but fear in her heart because in all honesty Nagisa’s appearance was actually rather frightening. Seeing the most stoic of them this shaken up was a whiplash she hadn’t been ready for.

“No, no I’m ok.” He assures her in the least reassuring way ever.

“I’m just…a bit worried. What’s going to happen to us from here? There’s...no way us kids can really stand up to every single adult in this city, we’d lose for sure. And then what would happen? We’d be arrested and they’d split us up and-”

“Nagisa.” She cuts his rant off suddenly. 

“Come here.” She says, beckoning him over next to her. Confused, he shakily steps over to her. She points to the gory mess on the computer in front of her.

“Look at Monaca’s magic. Monaca took down her Boss without even being in the same room as him. That’s how powerful Monaca’s magic is. 

That will be you too. Monaca will give you her magic, and you’ll be strong. Once everyone has Monaca’s magic, everyone will be strong, strong enough to fight the adults. You don’t have to be afraid, Monaca’s magic can do anything. We’ll build paradise with Monaca’s magic. It is possible. You just have to believe in Monaca, ok?” She asks. It’s a rhetorical question, but Nagisa answers anyways.

“But how will the other kids take it? There’s no way there just going to accept-”

“Monaca’s magic will take care of that too.” Cutting him off again, she pulls out her newest invention for Nagisa to see.

“This is Monaca’s magic helmet. Once we put these on the other kids, they’ll believe in paradise. They’ll help us take down the adults. They’ll be one of us. As soon as they’re under the spell of Monaca’s helmet, they’re part of paradise forever.” She explains.

“Monaca, we can’t do that! That’s brainwashing!” Nagisa cries. Ugh! Why won’t he listen to Monaca?!

“It’s. Fine! You said it yourself right!? They won’t listen to us any other way ! So we have to! There’s! No! Choice!” She starts yelling. Nagisa recoils, looking frantic and worried. Good.

“Because! Paradise! Is! What’s! Best! Right!?”

“Yes, that’s right, of course you’re right Monaca, you’re always right I know that so-”

“That’s! Why! Everyone! Has to! Listen! To! MONACA!” She keeps screaming not paying any mind to Nagisa’s words as he becomes increasingly more frantic to calm her down.

“Monaca. Is. Always. Right! So everybody! Has to! AGREE! WITH! HER!”

“Yes, of course we all agree with you Monaca! You’re right, you’re always right, I’m sorry for questioning you, the helmets are a great idea of course they are so please calm down!” Nagisa says, rambling and grasping at anything that will calm Monaca down.

“So you understand then? No more questioning Monaca’s magic?” She asks, and Nagisa doesn’t hesitate before nodding.

“Good, I’m glad you understand now. Everybody has to do what Monaca says. For the sake of paradise. So no more questioning her, alright Nagisa? It would be really bad if you went against paradise. We have high expectations for you, y’know?” Monaca doesn’t need the extra hook, but she throws it in anyways. That was way too close for comfort. She needs to make extra sure that she’s in control.

“Yeah, of course…” Nagisa replies shakily.

Good. Monaca is back in control.

Her Paradise will come along smoothly.


	4. The Princess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She might not have ever believed in paradise, but she'd fought for it, once.

The Revolution of screaming and bloodshed carried on without pause. 

Her new inventions worked perfectly, the children’s minds focused on nothing but causing chaos and inflicting suffering on the adults. They obeyed her every command with the click of a button, too. She’d need to change the parameters on their behaviors once Paradise was in place, but for now? It was perfect.

On her command, Shirokuma placed the truck in the hideout that he’d be taking the adults to. He was an excellent asset, too. The perfect spy to round the adults up in one place. Then all she’d have to do is flush them out into her Monokuma’s waiting claws. 

They wouldn’t know what was happening until it was already too late.

Her allies have taken to praising her now. No more pitying looks, no more offerings of help. They knew that she didn’t need their pity. They knew from the second that she gave them their specially-designed robots. Monaca was amazing. She was a genius. 

She was their princess.

The pampered princess who can do anything but doesn’t have to if she doesn’t feel like it. It’s wonderful, really. They all look at her like an angel, their amazing gift from god.  
A kind angel who’s capable of miracles. If only both parts of that statement were true.

It would be nice, if she could really feel all the light they saw in her. If she could truly be the kind person that they thought she was. 

Because lying is tiring. She wishes she didn’t have to lie. Why couldn’t she have just been born a better person? Everything would be so much easier if she didn’t have to lie all the time. If she didn’t have to smile all the time. Why couldn’t they have loved her for her genius? 

Sure, they appreciated it, admired her for it. But that wasn’t the same. That wasn’t the reason they loved her. They loved her because they looked at her and saw a wonderful, kind girl. A girl that doesn’t exist. Monaca wishes she existed. Monaca wished she could be that perfect angel that everyone was in love with. 

But she wasn’t. And she never would be.

So Monaca smiled.

She had to smile. Had to lie.

Because nobody loved Monaca.

They loved the Princess.

Not Monaca, not even the Mage. Only the Princess. Monaca would be lying if she said she wasn’t a little bitter about that. She didn’t want to be a Princess. She wanted to cry and scream and yell until her throat didn’t work anymore. But those actions wouldn’t befit the image that she had made for herself. And so she stayed silent, and smiled. 

She was tired of smiling.

So very, very tired. Of everything. Even the sweets and caffeine supplied by their newly acquired Servant seemed useless against her overwhelming exhaustion. She could barely pull herself out of bed, much less summon the energy required to spend all day lying and laughing. She collapsed into bed each night, completely drained by the strain that her mask put on her.

Wasn’t it ironic, how the only people who would care if she died were the ones digging her grave? Yeah, if this kept up, Monaca would definitely die. 

That thought wasn’t as alarming as it should’ve been.

It actually sounded pretty nice.

Hmm, there was something really wrong with her, wasn’t there?

Oh well, hope was already lost for her. There probably wasn’t anyone left in the world who would be equipped to help her, anyways. And even if there was, they’d be too busy helping the people who deserved it to bother with her. It was the end of the world, after all.

So Monaca pushed her realization to the back of her head and went on building Paradise. There wasn’t anything else left for her to do, after all. The world was returning to hope. Junko’s influence was fading away.

One day, Monaca got an idea. It wasn’t complete yet, only a flicker of something that she hadn’t fully worked out yet, but it was an idea nonetheless.

The Successor. She could make a successor for Big Sis. She could get back Big Sis. 

And it all started with a boring girl in an apartment. 

She’d sent a tip to Future Foundation about the Captives. Their Targets. She didn’t know anything about those dumb demons herself, but she did know that they were here in her city. All she needed was for those idiots at Future Foundation to come and find them for her.

And find them they did. Future Foundation came charging in, freeing captives into the waiting arms of the Monokuma, and being hopelessly killed themselves to boot. Talk about pathetic.

She easily rounded up the captives and attached her lovely exploding wristbands to them. This was going to be so much fun. The new Targets were very strong willed, and oh-so-desperate to survive, too! Finally, a bit of a challenge. 

And that’s when Monaca met her. Komaru Naegi. The little sister of her goddess’ killer. The perfect candidate for the successor. 

The girl was weak and cowardly...she would need an assistant to protect her while she grew.

Her Servant was happy to provide the ideal escort. Toko Fukawa. Yes, an emotionally distant, but strong woman. She would be perfect.

And so, three days after the start of the Revolution, she set Komaru off on her journey to become hope. She sat back, anxious to watch as her new big sis unknowingly slid down the path to her own demise. 

Masaru was already getting ready to go speed up the process. She sent out a new set of instructions to her children.

She couldn’t have him warning the others about their strong new opposition now, could she?

No, she needed them ignorant so they could help Komaru along. The new age of despair wouldn’t wait forever, after all. With every minute that passed, Big Sis Junko’s light faded. Replaced by that moronic hope. She couldn’t afford to fail. Big Sis’ legacy was counting on her.

She couldn’t let that precious light die. 

Failure was not an option.

She looked down at her screen, and at the girl who would soon help to reignite the fire of the revolution. She could already feel the despair that would come crashing down on the world. The pieces were all in place. It was only a matter of time now. 

She couldn’t wait to meet her new Big Sis.


	5. To Say Goodbye

The Hero is dead. 

Everything went exactly as she’d been planned. Miss Komaru and Miss Escort when right down the route she’d set up to help them progress. She hadn’t been planning on that Target showing up, but in the end it added on to Komaru’s growth, so it was a win-win. 

Maybe that's why she defeated Masaru so easily. She was growing up so fast…she would be ready in no time!

So why did Monaca’s chest hurt when Masaru got dragged away? Everything was going according to plan. She should’ve felt happy. So why did her chest feel so...empty? She hated it. She wasn’t supposed to feel like this anymore. She was doing her sister’s work. Junko was going to be proud of her. So why was this feeling back again? It was supposed to be gone now. That’s not fair. That’s not fair at all.

And so when she cries at Masaru’s funeral the tears aren’t entirely fake. Not that they’re actually for him or anything. But letting out your emotions is good, and his death is the perfect excuse. So she strings up a little speech to say goodbye forever to their precious little coward. To their leader. Oh right, Masaru was the leader, wasn’t he? Oh well, Nagisa can be leader then. He’d super wanted to do it anyways, right?

So then why was Nagisa so insistent that they go and find Masaru? He was dead. Why didn’t Nagisa understand that he was dead? It was simple, wasn’t it? There was no point in even bothering to check. He was dead. 

But Nagisa kept arguing, saying things like “no proof” and “no evidence”. As though you needed to be a hundred percent certain of something for it to be true. How naive. There’s no way to know anything for certain, not really. Even if you think you do, that just means for extra certain that you don’t. So why doesn’t he understand that? Why won’t he listen to Monaca? 

There’s no point in checking, Masaru is dead! Right!? It’s useless! He’s just dead! What is essential is invisible to the eye, right!? He’s gone, it’s all gone! It stopped short, never to be seen again! Like when the old man died, y’know!? He’s dead! Monaca killed him! He’s not coming back! Why doesn’t Nagisa understand?! 

He says he does, he says that he does understand but he doesn’t! He doesn’t get it at all! 

But there’s no way for her to make him understand. So she tries to finish up the funeral and get back to the game. And Nagisa interupts her again. Why did he have to keep getting in her way? ...And how can Monaca get him to stop?

Nagisa...has a crush on her, right? Monaca never really understood that whole thing, but that means that Nagisa loves her or something, right? Could she use that somehow…?

...Whenever Papa’s girlfriends didn’t do what he wanted, he always said that they didn’t love him and then they’d stop. Maybe something like that? She couldn’t use the exact same words, but... 

“Does Nagisa hate Monaca? Do you hate Monaca now because she’s just so selfish?” She asks, letting her eyes water full of crocodile tears. He says no without any hesitation. Ok, so that worked. Maybe if she can get him to admit that he likes her, she can make him stop disagreeing with her for good. 

So she asks Nagisa if he likes her. He gets super embarrassed, but he doesn’t give her a clear answer at all. He acts all formal and it’s stupid because this is supposed to be about feelings so there’s no need to be all particular and wordy and not say what you really mean. 

Like an adult.

...Kind of like Papa, actually.

That last idea sorta scared her for some reason, so she backed up to the the “adult-like” part and focused on that. Nagisa was totally acting like an adult right now. It was actually kind of weird. But it was also something that she could use.

“Y’know Nagisa, that attitude of yours...you’re sounding just a little bit like an adult.” She says plainly. That gets everyone’s attention. The room goes dead silent. Nagisa is completely still, his face doesn’t even move. Slowly, his expression starts morphing into horror. Bingo. 

The silence is quickly replaced by accusations from the other two, as Nagisa starts sputtering to defend himself. Finally regaining his senses, Nagisa shouts in defense, reciting the promise they all swore on with pain crystal clear in his voice. That accusation had hurt a lot, huh? It makes sense, though. Nagisa could be a hundred and three and he’d still probably tell himself that he’s a child. Even though he’s never really seemed like a child in all the time that Monaca has known him, he gets so angry at the idea that he might not be. So strange.

Monaca twists him around a bit more and eventually gets Nagisa to say that he likes her, but then he adds some stupid thing on the end again so she can’t use it for anything. Oh well, he said it at least. That’s a start. 

At any rate, Nagisa seems to forget about Masaru. So it all works out in the end.


	6. Anything But Gentle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright it's done. It's done. I don't care that it's too short. I'm running away and never looking at this again ever. Oh god why.

“But...is it really true? That Jataro is dead…” Kotoko mumbles.

What? What was this all of a sudden?

“No...if he is dead, then where is his body right now? I’m just a little bit, just a _little_ bit curious about that…” She says, getting louder but still sounding incredibly nervous. Why…? Why was Kotoko even thinking about this? She didn’t even like Jataro! She hated him, right? So why did she care all of a sudden!? Why was she doubting Monaca!?

“Could it be that Kotoko is saying...that Monaca is wrong?” She says. Kotoko doesn’t stop. She says that Monaca is right, that Monaca could never be wrong but she _isn’t stopping._

Why isn’t she stopping? Why won’t she listen to Monaca? Why is this happening again? Just like with Nagisa...Her control is slipping. Why? Because Masaru and Jataro were dead? That didn’t make any sense. They’d never cared about those two. They hadn’t even liked those two. So why was everyone acting weird all of a sudden? Why did they suddenly care? She didn’t get it. She didn’t get it at all. She didn’t understand. Why was Kotoko still talking about it why was she still not listening to Monaca why why **WHY!?**

She need to stop her, needs to get her back under control, she needs to **stop her now.**

“Yup, yup! I already know that! I know you’re just a sweet, gentle little girl.” She says.

It stops Kotoko, so she doesn’t know why her chest is suddenly hurting even more when Kotoko collapses to the ground crying. 

There’s the usual few seconds of silence, before she starts muttering pleas to make it stop through her tears. Begging for mercy from people that she’s already murdered. How strange. How sad. It’s the fault of all those demons. She talks to Kotoko about this while she gets her back under control. Demons are the worst. 

Blind, blind and stupid. They can’t see what’s right in front of them. The stupid pieces of shit. How could they do this to Kotoko without even realizing it? She can’t wait to see them all explode into bits and burn. Why couldn’t Big Sis hurry up and get here already? She wanted all those ugly, stupid, worthless demons to die right now. 

Kotoko seemed to agree with this sentiment completely. And she didn’t care about Jataro anymore. Good. Everything was back under control. Monaca was in control. She didn’t have to worry anymore. 

So why did her chest still hurt?


	7. Paradise is Dead

Monaca is drawing her magic circle when one of the Monokuma Kids comes to her with a monitor. Apparently something has happened that she needs to see.The kid then plays back footage of Nagisa. Helping Big Sis get away. 

Servant says he’ll take care of it. Monaca doesn’t care. She turns off Nagisa’s protective field.

She watches as the Monokuma close in on Nagisa. She tries to calm the ache in her chest by telling herself that it’s for the best. Nagisa would just ditch her again if she spared him. It doesn’t work. But it doesn’t really matter because Big Sis saves him and the ache disappears. Fine then, she’ll just have to send more. 

She built up Big Sis too well. She’s too strong now. The bears that Monaca sends against her might as well be flies in the face of her power. That would probably be a good thing if it wasn’t for Nagisa tearing her plan apart. Why wouldn’t he just stop? He had to know by now that Monaca was mad. Did he just...not care? 

She watches as the traitor stops in front of a pile of demons. Why does he look _guilty?_ It’s just a bunch of demons. Why the hell would he care?

Nagisa tells the heroes their story. About their parents, about their suicide attempt. Well that’s good at least. If Big Sis feels bad for her, then the chance of her killing Monaca goes down a lot. Nagisa keeps looking guilty though, looking down and fidgeting whenever Komaru asks him why. Why they’d do all this. She’s just upset about them killing demons, right? So why does Nagisa care? And why did he keep saying that they ‘had’ to do it? They didn’t. They were just doing it because it was fun. So why was Nagisa acting like it was some big noble responsibility that he was bound to or something?

Ohhh. Monaca gets it now. Nagisa doesn’t actually believe in paradise. He’s just lying. 

He doesn’t care about paradise, he just cares about the Warriors of Hope. That explains a lot, actually. But it’s also kinda scary. ‘Cause that means that even if she does get Nagisa back, he’ll just leave again after the war kicks off. 

He might even try to betray Monaca once he finds out that Monaca killed the others. 

And it was at that moment that Monaca realized that she _had_ to kill Nagisa now. There weren’t any other options left. Nagisa was naive. That didn’t make him stupid. He’d figure Monaca out before the finale was even over. And she really isn’t sure if she can beat Nagisa.

She’s positive that she can kill him, somehow. She just needs some time to figure out how to. But actually fighting Nagisa? If Nagisa realized that she’d betrayed the others, he could end up being so angry that he’d sick his robot on her. Nagisa’s robot is by far the most personalized to its owner’s benefit. It wasn’t entirely unintentional. She’d taken special care with Nagisa’s, since she’d figured he’d be best suited for controlling the robots. 

She’s not actually sure if she’d be capable of beating Nagisa in a fight. That thought never scared her up until now. 

Her robot was the most powerful, definitely. But it was clunky and slow. It had a small range of attacks. She’d never really thought that it would matter, since she’d figured her only competition would be demons. She hadn’t thought about the possibility of Nagisa betraying her.

But now, as that very possibility slapped her in the face as an inevitability, she realizes that she really, really should’ve. She now understands the true meaning of the phrase ‘20/20 hindsight’. God, she was dumb. And now she had to deal with it. 

Not immediately, since she can’t see anything more as the group goes into the shrine. She sees Nagisa run out of the shrine a few minutes later with tears in his eyes. She feels her heart seize up when she sees him call for his robot. No. No, Servant couldn’t have messed up that badly already, right?...Maybe Servant was betraying her too.

She contemplates sending the AI controlled mechs to the shrine, even though she just finished them and hasn’t had a chance to test run them yet. She has a finger sitting over the button when Komaru and Toko leave the shrine. And then Nagisa comes out with an injured Servant.

Oh. She’s safe. She feels a wave of relief wash over her as she takes her itching finger off the button. Oh thank god.

But it turns out that it’s out of the frying pan and into the fire. Only a few minutes later, Nagisa throws Servant onto the floor of the war room with rage in his voice and bloody murder in his eyes. No more time for planning. She has to deal with him right now. 

She takes a deep breath in, braces herself, and pushes herself into the room. 

And she’s met with a much clearer view of what exactly is happening. Servant is lying on the ground, curled up in a ball with his hands tied behind his back. He’s gritting his teeth and apologizing. He’s completely helpless. Nagisa is above him. Nagisa is shouting at him and kicking at him and suddenly Monaca isn’t there and she’s at home and Big Brother is kicking her and it hurts, everything hurts and she wants it to stop but he just keeps shouting and kicking-

And everything goes blank.


	8. To Say Goodbye

Nagisa is gone. Her chest doesn’t hurt like before. In fact, she feels rather relieved as she watches him descend down the elevator, out of sight and to his own demise. She’s safe. Nobody is going to betray her anymore. She’ll be safe. She’ll live.

At least, live long enough to see her Big Sis’ resurrection. There’s still a chance that she could be killed _by_ Big Sis though, if she has to use that trump card. That’s fine though. As long as Big Sis’ legacy is saved, Monaca’s role in life is completed. It’s the only reason that she needs to be here.

A flash of pink whips by on one of the monitors. Oh, that’s right. Kotoko is still alive. Maybe Monaca can still keep her around…She should play back all the footage of her, just in case.

And then Monaca almost wishes she hadn’t.

Apparently, Kotoko had been listening in on her _conversation_ with Nagisa. And now she was contemplating how exactly to “knock that traitor’s lights out for good”.

Monaca’s blood runs cold as she continues to listen. That awful pain in her chest is back. Damn it, she should’ve made sure that door was locked. But she’d screwed up, and forgotten, and now the last of her allies was now contemplating how to kill her.

No taking any chances this time.

She sends out a group of Beast Monokuma and orders all nearby children to start singing. She sits back and waits for the last warrior of hope to be ripped to shreds.

...Why wasn’t she dying? How did she keep holding out?

No matter how many she sends, Kotoko just keeps taking them out. With dentures, of all things. Her amazing robots, taken out by some stupid dentures. Monaca finds herself less sad and far more pissed off as the other girl continues to stave off death with a toy gun. 

She sends out the last of the Beast Monokumas and watches Kotoko climb up onto the ceiling pipes. She might’ve been able to escape the building entirely if she’d managed to make it to the vents, but she slips and falls at the last second, left hanging by her fingertips. The Monokuma jump up and snap at her feet, falling short of her by mere millimeters. Monaca is too annoyed by this to wonder why it makes her chest feel lighter. 

“Just fall already!” She shouts at the screen. The girl on the other side of the monitor doesn’t respond or cooperate with her request of course, still hanging on for dear life as she cries for someone to save her, please save her, she doesn’t want it to end like this. She doesn’t want to die!

Monaca is having difficulties with her stupid malfunctional chest again, and so she doesn’t notice the new arrival in the room. She does notice when the music comes to an abrupt stop, though. She watches the Beast Monokuma blow up and sees as Kotoko falls to safety. The pain in her chest eases off so that she can see her horrible mistake.

She’d forgotten about Big Sis. God dammit, she’s so stupid.

The heroes approach her ex-ally, interrogating her about the circumstances that lead to her dangling above her former assistants and certain death. And for once, Kotoko doesn’t lie. She tells the girls everything about how Monaca isn’t interested in paradise and how she wants to make the successor to Big Sis and a bunch of other words that make her stupid chest start clenching up again. About how Monaca was an awful traitor. How she betrayed Kotoko and all the boys and how Kotoko wishes she was dead. The computer screen is blurry. Why is it blurry? Is something wrong with the camera? The blurriness drops a fraction and she feels something on her cheek. What?

Monaca reaches up and finds that...she’s crying. Monaca is confused. Why is she crying all of a sudden? She didn’t understand. She already knew that Kotoko would think those things, it wasn’t anything unexpected. It was all true, after all. So why was she sobbing? She couldn’t see anything through her tears, she could barely hear whatever thing that Kotoko was saying now. Why was she crying so much? She couldn’t make it stop. Why wouldn’t it stop!? She doesn’t care! She doesn’t care at all! Who cares about what Kotoko thinks!? Who cares about her at all!? Nobody! It doesn’t matter at all! She doesn’t care about Kotoko! She doesn’t care about any of the others! That’s why she could betray them all without it hurting or anything, _right!?_ She doesn’t care about them, she doesn’t care about paradise, she doesn’t care about any of this stupid nonsense about demons or revolution or whatever! It doesn’t matter! This is all just a setup for the sake of the successor, right!? She shouldn’t care! She _doesn’t_ care! She hates them! She hates all of them! She hates Kotoko and the Warriors and Paradise and demons and Big Brother and Papa and all of it! It’s all stupid! They’re all stupid! None of them matter! She doesn’t care about any of them at all! She! Doesn’t! **Care!!!**

She feels a hand on her shoulder and turns to scream at the stupid person touching her. A Monokuma Kid offers her a box of tissues and a tablet that indicates how close Big Sis is. Oh yeah. Right. She’ll be here soon. 

Monaca wipes her tears away and starts setting things up to make sure the climax goes off without a hitch. And hopefully without a Kotoko. 

Everything needs to go perfectly, or else...all of this is going to be wasted. She needs to do this. To make Big Sis proud of her. Or everything she threw away was for nothing. She has to succeed. 

She doesn’t have a choice.


	9. The Successor

She lost. All according to plan.

Now that she’s lost and all her lies are out in the open, all she has to do is push a little more and then the Successor will be born and the real fun will start. Big Sis is already starting to stare at the controller contemplatively. It would be nice if she just broke it right now and got it over with, huh?

Monaca’s face lights up as she sees her Big Sis to-be go to do exactly that. But she stops…Why would she do that? Does she need Monaca to give her another push? 

Monaca decides to try accusing her of turning to the kids side. It doesn’t totally work, but after some reassurance from her escort, Big Sis moves to break the controller again.

Only for Kotoko to come barging in at the last second. Ugh, of course this had to happen _now._ Stupid Kotoko. Why couldn’t she have just gone and died like everyone else?

Kotoko starts begging for them not to break the controller. Something about “friends”. Monaca wonders if Kotoko is really naive enough to think of the brainwashed children as friends after they tried to kill her. But wait, if she does think that...then maybe Monaca can bring Kotoko back to her side if she plays along.

“Kotoko’s right...don’t break that controller.” She says with as much emotion as she can conjure up, seeing if she can send a message to Kotoko with her brain or maybe just with a look. “If you don’t, I promise, I’ll kill all of the adults and build paradise.”

“S-shut your mouth, traitor!” Welp, nevermind then. Kotoko wasn’t going to believe her after all. Oh well, it was worth a shot.

“Kotoko...why are you saying such mean things? We’re friends.” Monaca cries, struggling to put all the feelings on all the right words. She doesn’t feel it at all. She doesn’t feel sad. She feels angry. She wants to stand up right now and yank Kotoko’s stupid pigtails out for not listening to her before Kotoko can even figure out that she’s standing. What happened to ‘Princess’, huh!? Monaca’s a perfect angel or whatever, right!? Right!? So where the hell does she get off acting like she’s better than Monaca!? _She’s_ the traitor! It’s her fault! Her! Fault!

Monaca doesn’t yell. Kotoko says that she’s just a traitor who killed her own friends, and she feels like screaming but for some reason she just keeps apologizing for no reason. She knows it’s not going to work. Apologizing never works when someone is yelling at you. But for some reason Monaca keeps trying anyways. It’s pointless, but she does it. 

But of course, it doesn’t make a difference. Her voice can’t reach her subordinate’s ears anymore.

She wants to go back to being Princess.

Big Sis and her escort aren’t listening to the younger girl’s bickering anymore, and they start discussing what to do on their own. Luckily, Miss Escort seems hellbent on getting the controller broken. 

There’s no point in Monaca talking to Kotoko anymore. She wouldn’t listen to Monaca if the world was reduced to just the two of them. So Monaca decides to turn her attention to someone who can hear her, to her new saviour. She gives her some helpful advice. Or really, just some words to despair over once this is all done.

“Miss Komaru Naegi, please listen to Monaca’s request too.” She says, plastering on a face that’ll hopefully rest in Big Sis’ nightmares forever. “Please...make the right choice. If you don’t choose right, you’re going to replay this moment over and over...So make the _correct choice_ and end this properly.” With a boom. Lots of booms. Though Big Sis might not think of it as proper right away.

Komaru stares at the controller, long and hard. But she still doesn’t break it. Ugh, why won’t she break it!? Talk about a hard customer.!

Monaca tries and tries to convince Big Sis to break the stupid controller but for some reason she just doesn’t want to do it at all. Even her friend is encouraging her to do it, so why does she keep refusing? You’re supposed to listen to your friends, right? 

Monaca supposes that friends just don’t listen anyways. So maybe that idea is kind of just pointless and misleading.

Miss Escort points out that it’s strange for Monaca to be encouraging Big Sis to break the controller. Dammit. Monaca was being too obvious. She should’ve been more careful. Dammit, dammit!

Ugh! Why couldn’t she do this right? Why couldn’t anything go her way!? Why!? This was supposed to be the perfect scene! All the kids were supposed to die and then Komaru was supposed to replace Big Sis and there was supposed to be lots and lots of despair and Big Sis was supposed to be proud of her! Why isn’t anything going right!? Why is Monaca failing!?

She’s so frustrated and caught up in trying to stop Kotoko from encouraging Big Sis out of breaking the controller that she almost misses the feeling of a buzzer going off in her pocket. She doesn’t, though, and when her brain catches up and realizes what the buzzer is signaling her heart jumps up into her throat. She tries and almost succeeds in keeping her voice steady as she puts on a smile and announces the last arrival to the finale party.

Big Brother comes through the door. He walks up to her with a look on his face that screams of how badly she’s about to be hurt and she wants to stand up and start running. But she’s frozen in place, it’s as though her muscles aren’t working, and so she starts crying and begging to be saved because _that always works doesn’t it?_

He starts laughing like a mad man, and it’s surprising and distracting enough that nobody notices her flinch. He leans down towards her with a smile on his face and somehow that’s a million times more scary than a glare. Monaca barely manages to respond. But as he keeps yelling at her, yelling those same cruel words that she’s tired of hearing, something in the part of her brain that doesn’t have to feel things tells her that maybe, just maybe she can use this to her advantage. If not to get the older girls on her side, but to retrieve Kotoko. Surely, _surely_ Kotoko won’t let a child get attacked by a demon right in front of her, even if it’s Monaca. Right?

“Why…? Why are you being so mean? Monaca’s just a child…” She’s just a child, she’s just a child, surely Kotoko will remember that she’s just a child and come and save her and then everything will be better again. And she’ll be so happy to have Big Sis back that she won’t even be mad at Monaca anymore, she’ll be happy and she’ll forgive Monaca and tell Monaca that she’s amazing for coming up with such a great plan to bring Big Sis back. Even if it’s just the two of them, things can still go back to the way they used to, right? They’ll kill all the demons and the world will be a pit of despair and it’ll be their beautiful paradise…It’ll be fine. Everything be fine.

Big Brother finally stops yelling at her and she breathes again as he turns to start yelling at Komaru to break the controller. She starts begging for Big Sis to spare her controller, and she feels oddly happy when Kotoko joins in.

But for whatever reason, the controller doesn’t break. Big Sis doesn’t snap it in half and throw it on the floor and smash up all the bits. She doesn’t even press on it that hard. Monaca feels the urge to groan. Why couldn’t she just go through with it already? Jeez.

Big Brother then starts his own coercion attempt, bringing Big Sis’ attention to the screaming hoard of people outside, begging her to listen to them. Monaca is still trying to figure out why his voice sounds like it’s shaking when he walks over to her and yanks on her hair.

“Tell them what you’ve done. Everything. The whole truth. Then there’s no way they’d side with you.” he growls. 

“E-everything?” She asks through her tears.

“Tell them the truth, or I’ll make sure you regret it.” He says. 

Monaca doesn’t need to be told twice.

She starts spilling everything out, not even thinking about it. Not thinking about whether or not she should say certain things or not say certain things. She can’t. Not with Big Brother hanging over her. So she says everything. From the suicide pact to brilliant Big Sis Junko and everything else. She goes off track on accident and feels fingers in her hair again but her attempt to shrivel away fails and her hair gets pulled back again as Big Brother yells at her to get back on track. So she goes on to talk about the mass production of the Monokumas and how she’d helped the Tragedy along so well with her genius inventions, how even Papa wasn’t able to stop her at all. 

Funnily enough, everyone starts glaring at Big Brother the more she keeps saying all the things that were supposed to turn them to his side. Hah. Serves him right. Stupid Demon.

She feels a bitter taste in her mouth as she explains everything that happened after Big Sis died. Not just because of the reminder of that cruel ending, but because of the reminder of how badly she failed to keep things moving after that. How Papa had just given it all up. She represses the urge to grit her teeth by reminding herself that she already made Papa pay for betraying Big Sis like that. It wasn’t enough though. He should’ve suffered more. He should’ve died a thousand deaths for betraying her like that! She hopes hell is real just so that she can know that he’ll never escape from his punishment.

She keeps telling the truth, tells everyone everything about how she never really cared about Paradise anyways and how everything had been leading up to the Successor. It’s not as though Kotoko didn’t already know all of that, so it doesn’t really matter, right? She can just say everything.

And so she says that she’s going to start a war.

She says nothing but the truth, but Big Brother starts ripping her hair out again anyways. She’s not lying, though! She did what he wanted her to do! That’s not fair! She can’t win at all!

Kotoko suddenly says that she remembers something. What?

“Monaca and Kurokuma were having a secret talk...I was listening in.” She...what? Which secret talk had she heard? How’d she even hear it at all?...Monaca really needs to start locking the doors more, huh? 

Kotoko reveals that she heard about Monaca’s little helmet trick. Aww...she’d wanted that to be a surprise though...Oh well, she supposes it’s her own fault for letting Kotoko catch her.

Big Sis becomes even more adamant to keep the controller intact, though. Not good. Big Brother yells at her, saying that Monaca and Kotoko are both just bluffing, that it’s fine to break it. She refuses to listen. Why does this keep happening? Why does she keep being so stubborn!? Just fall into despair already!

Big Brother takes it even worse than Monaca. He starts screaming at Big Sis about how the brainwashing doesn’t matter, how they all deserved to die for what they did under Monaca’s control. Monaca almost feels kind of bad. They didn’t really deserve to take the blame like that. Oh well, she’d expected this kind of reaction, anyways.

Miss Escort steps in and tries to get Big Brother to calm down. Her words have the opposite effect. He’s losing it. Screaming about _revenge_ , about _what he’s been through._ It’s like he’s too stupid to even realize why this all happened in the first place. He probably is.

He turns to Big Sis and starts mumbling again, begging her, sounding like he’s on the verge of tears. Monaca can’t stop herself from grinning ear to ear. Then Miss Escort suddenly turns her attention to Monaca. Apparently, she’s figured out Monaca’s little war plan. Hmm, Servant might’ve picked too witty of an escort.

But she’s not just going to let this ratty woman steal her thunder. 

“Nope, that’s not quite it. Because it’s not going to end with just a war between Towa and Future Foundation.” she says simply. She watches with satisfaction as she reveals the true magnitude of the war and sees the horror grow on every adult’s face. She wants to laugh at how broken Big Brother looks after he realizes that everything he did to survive was just according to her plan.

Big Sis Junko would be so proud of her for twisting hope like this, growing this beautiful beacon of salvation up for these demons. The world is going to burn again.

Big Sis is sobbing. She doesn’t understand. She can’t comprehend why this is happening to her, even though her arrival here was her own doing. She’s shaking and pale as she listens to the demons, screaming for her to kill all the children. It’s the tipping point, now. Monaca has this in the bag.

She can’t help but laugh as she explains to Big Sis that it’s all her fault. As Big Sis’s eyes widen so much that they look like they just might pop out.

Miss Escort tries to defend her charge as Big Brother starts grasping at straws, still trying to find a way to make it sound like Monaca is bluffing. He’s just not letting go of that, huh? She needs to make him shut up. Or just shake him.

Monaca stands.

Big Brother looks like he’s about to faint. It takes everything to keep herself from smiling. But she has a job to do. Now that Big Brother is stunned, she can pull Big Sis down easy peasy.

She walks up to her new Big Sis and stares into her broken face.

“What’re you gonna do, huh? How are you going to end this? Are you going to kill the children and play the savior? Or...are you going to spare the children’s lives, and let them keep slaughtering the adults?” She savours the look she gets from that. “Who lives? Who dies? That is your choice. You can’t save both, one side has to die.”

“And you’re going to kill them.”

She’s answered with sobbing.

She tells Komaru Naegi to make her final choice.

And Komaru...still refuses. No, she going to break it. She has to break it. Monaca won’t allow for anything else. She’s going to kill the children, and the war is going to start, and the Successor is going to be born.

“There’s no way you can be a vessel of Big Sis Junko!” Kotoko snaps at her. Wait, what?

...Ooooooh. Monaca understands now. Everyone is just mistaken. Monaca isn’t the Successor, Big Sis is. She tells them this...but they still don’t get it. Really? Is that really so hard to grasp? Of course Monaca can’t be the Successor! 

Big Sis doesn’t understand. But maybe that’s just because she’s still in shock or whatever. She can’t even seem to respond. Miss Escort keeps trying to defend her and Haiji keeps saying she’s bluffing and they sound like they’re stuck on loop or something.

Haiji keeps trying to convince Big Sis to play along into his petty revenge scheme. She doesn’t listen. The other girls agree with her, saying that it has nothing to do with her and she doesn’t have to care about the adults one bit. 

Nothing to do with her. Right. Time to bring out the trump card. Big Sis might not care about the adults, but she’ll definitely take revenge for her parents.

“...What do you mean ‘revenge’?” Komaru asks quietly. Oh, this is going to be great.

She claps, signaling the monitor to be brought in. It flickers to life, revealing the bodies of Mr. and Mrs. Naegi. She watches the light drain out of Big Sis’s eyes. The tears stop. The shaking stops. She slumps, staring blankly for a few more seconds before collapsing to her knees.

As the reality of her mother’s dying message sets in, Komaru Naegi begins to sob again. And it’s then that the others finally start to comprehend what’s just happened. Miss Escort immediately starts making excuses, wildly trying to refute the truth, trying to find a way to think that this is all ok. Big Brother has other ideas.

“Are you just going to forget the fact that this _bitch_ murdered your own parents!? Shame on you!” he snaps. A wild look falls over his face as he starts screaming at her to kill them all. And as Miss Escort stumbles over herself trying to put a stop to all this, Big Sis finally speaks up.

“I-it’s fine.” she tells her friend. She then looks up at Monaca with so much fury and hatred in her eyes that Monaca can’t help but wonder if she’s going to die. “If you want me to destroy it that much, I’ll do it.”

“I s-said hold on!” Miss Escort cries. “Calm down, and think through this carefull Koma-”

“Shut up!” Big Sis sobs.

“Who...cares anymore!? No matter what happens to adults, no matter what happens to children, no matter what happens to this town, no matter what happens to the _world,_ ” she shouts, choking on her tears. 

“ _I don’t give a **damn** anymore!_ I...don’t give a damn!” she chokes on that final sentence, before raising the controller up into the air.

“Toko...I’m sorry, i-it’s impossible.” She mutters. Miss Escort almost seems too shocked to move, before she flies into action. She lunges towards Big Sis, grasping at the controller. She almost even makes it in time.

The controller breaks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> happy birthday, kiddo


	10. A Road To Somewhere Other Than Where You Are

Despair isn’t what Big Sis said it was going to be at all. In fact, it doesn’t feel very different or special at all. There’s nothing special about the ugly feeling she gets in her chest whenever Big Sis Komaru shrugs her off or when Miss Syo threatens to cut her up with scissors. Her heart doesn’t feel like it’s soaring.

Really, how dull. There’s nothing interesting about it at all.

Maybe lying to Monaca about despair was Big Sis’s way of _causing_ her to despair. Monaca doesn’t feel all depairy though. She just feels disappointed

Watching the war unfold isn’t any funner. They just keep trudging ahead effortlessly. There’s no stakes or challenge. All it is, is extremely, incredibly boring. 

Maybe she isn’t causing enough despair...or maybe it just isn’t the right kind of despair? But what else can she do? What can she give as a gift to her angel up in heaven? What kind of despair would make her weak at the knees?

When did Big Sis look the happiest?

Monaca thinks about it and thinks about it, and eventually comes to an answer: when her plan fell to pieces. When everything she’d worked for was completely destroyed.

But what could Monaca do to cause that? The only plan that Big Sis had valued more than her killing game was the Tragedy itself. So then…

The wheels turn in Monaca’s head, there’s something, the idea is right there, right out of reach. A despair worse than undoing the killing game...worse than the killing game.

And then everything clicks.

Undoing the Tragedy.

What could possibly make Big Sis more deliciously horrified than watching her own loyal servant turn around and bring her master plan crumbling to the ground? So that was it then. Monaca had to stop the Tragedy.

She heads out for the control center. She gets a message from Komaru saying that she’s wondering where she is and that she needs Monaca back right now. Monaca almost turns around.

But the tug in her heart doesn’t stop her from marching up to the main control panel and beginning to press button after button. Soon, every Monokuma, every mecha, every single one of Monaca’s magic weapons have been shut down. Aside from the missiles, that is. She launches those out towards every Remnant stronghold she can think of.

And of course, her own refortified mecha. She’s not going against a juggernaut like Syo unarmed. She’s safe from Komaru’s gun now, too. Not that the older girl knows that or anything.

Monaca thinks about what a fun surprise that’ll be as she pulls out a camera and starts up a recording to send to her new potential allies. Though she supposes they might not look at it after the last recording she sent them…

“ _Ahem_...Hi Future Foundation! You might remember me! I’m the one who started that whole Successor thing, Monaca Towa! But the thing is,” She explains, putting on her biggest smile for the camera. “I’m not actually interested in doing that whole despair thing anymore! It’s really bland, y’know? So I decided I’d work for hope from now on! I know there’s no way you guys’ll accept me into your group or anything, I just wanted to let you guys know that I’m on your side now! Hit me up sometime, we can talk about flowers and sunshine or saving the polar bears or whatever it is you guys do!...Well, bye-bye for now, I guess! Hope to hear from you guys soon!”

She turns the camera off and starts uploading the video, not bothering to edit it. Oh, right. She should probably go get that hostage guy, too. They’re going to want that.

After a few minutes, she’s unlocking the door to Mister Byakuya Togami’s cell. He doesn’t look happy to see her, but she also isn’t sure if he’s even capable of looking happy in the first place.

“I’m being nice now,” She says with the sweetest grin she can manage. “You want a ride back to Future Foundation?”

He stares at her contemplatively for a while, clearly sizing her up. 

“No. Just give me a laptop and drop me off outside of the city. I can call a ride myself.” He says eventually.

“Oh, the range is actually bigger than that now. You’d needa be fifty kilometers in on the mainland to get a signal.” She explains. The gloomy mister stares at her for a while again.

“...Is that so.” He grumbles.

“Yup!” She says cheerily. She’s met with a suspicious glare.

“...Fine, take me out of the range. But stop outside the city so I can make sure you’re really telling the truth and you aren’t up to anything.” He says, giving her a look fit to peel paint. She doesn’t back down in the slightest. He’s not half as scary as he thinks he is.

She leads him along to her mecha and gets up on her seat, using the empty hand of Jataro’s robot to scoop the man off the ground. He sputters in disbelief and starts whining indignantly to be put down or at the very least allowed to sit properly. She doesn’t listen and starts moving.

“What happened to you being ‘nice’ you little brat!?” The man barks.

“This is Monaca’s nice.” She answers simply.

She goes back to ignoring her flustered passenger and idly wonders about what her new life is going to be like. She’s never believed in hope before. She still doesn’t. But maybe fighting for it could be a little fun. At the very least, it has to be better than the boring world she’s in right now.

She’s not the best good guy. But she’ll try to be the best that she can. For a little while at least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You thought I was kidding? Hell nah, we're going Bad End all the way. DR3 is evil.


	11. Welcome To A New Age

Heroism is a weird business. Maybe that’s just because of the state of the world now, but Monaca’s point still stands. It’s weird.

She supposes she’d sort of expected all these optimistic, flowery sunshine people. Maybe because that’s the impression of hope that Big Sis Junko gave her. Or maybe it was Makoto Naegi that sealed that idea?

But in the end, it turns out the Future Foundation is mostly made up of grouchy bitter dem- _adults_. Adults. She’s still working on that.

And a lot of other things that apparently don’t fall under “normal child” behavior. She doesn’t know what these people were expecting from her. Something better, apparently. Well, too bad. Monaca is Monaca. Changing is too much of a pain.

She thinks maybe they’d been expecting some sort of noble turn around where she realized the error of her ways and decided to change herself for the better. How...silly. Of course Monaca already knew that all of her actions were wrong. That’s what made them despair inducing.

But regardless of whether or not they were disappointed in her, they still provided Monaca with a place in their base when she wasn’t out saving the world for them.

Provided that she regularly has checkups with Miss Miaya Gekkogahara.

But other than all that annoying crap, Monaca finds that heroism is rather fun. The scales are tipped against her. There’s an actual challenge involved. Especially when the goal is to save innocents from inescapable doom instead of plow them down. A lot trickier.

Especially the part where they break down sobbing, thanking her for saving them. She’s not quite sure how to respond to those people. Sometimes, she’ll find herself confused and stunned for a few seconds, until she remembers that she’s the hero now. It’s more than a little bit of whiplash. A little part of her really likes it, though. Which is probably a good thing, with how often it happens. 

She managed to level up to Savior without the rest of her party. Go figure.

It’s nice to try and convince herself that she never needed them.

Her annoying therapist disagrees with this sentiment for some stupid reason. She thinks that Monaca is running away from her own feelings, and that that’s not a healthy thing for her to do. Monaca really couldn’t care less what’s good for her. She also thinks it’s more than a little bit hypocritical for _her_ to be badgering Monaca about what’s good for her.

She doesn’t actually think that. But she savors the look that crosses that stupid woman’s face.

She also can’t help but laugh at the fact that she’s once again amassed a following. No brainwashing required, her pathetic rescuees make vows to support Monaca without her even breaking a sweat. She thinks she might be even more popular than some of the branch executives. Which makes sense. They’re all crazy weirdos who need an eleven year old to do their work for them, after all.

The survivors of the first killing all seem incredibly depressed, whether or not they’ll admit out loud that it’s because of Miss Toko Fukawa. Good. They deserve to be miserable.

But for some god forsaken reason, no amount of misery stops Makoto Naegi from trying to form some sort of bond with Monaca. She has no idea what the fuck he thinks he’s trying to do. And no matter how many times she shoves him away or slams a door in his face, he just comes back a few hours later to badger her again. Speaking of which...

“Monaca, would you open up the door please? I have a present for you!” calls a sunny, singsong voice that makes Monaca wanna scream her throat out.

“A present? What are you talking about, weirdo?” she growls.

“Haven’t you been paying attention to the calendar? It’s April 1st today! That’s your birthday, right?” Naegi explains happily.

“...What?”

“I got you a birthday present!” Monaca’s mind feels as though it’s reeling to a halt. Her body, however, catapults her chair across the room and opens the door to stare slack-jawed in awe at a man holding out a present for _her._

“Would you like to open it?” He asks softly. Monaca doesn’t know how to respond as he lightly presses it forward into her hands. Slowly, she backs up, sitting down on the bed, and tentatively starting to unwrap it. She relaxes as the box becomes more and more visible. This is probably just a prank or a joke gift or something. Maybe he shoved some razorblades under the wrapping or something like that. Whatever, she can humor Mr.Stupid for a minute.

She pulls off all the wrapping, revealing nothing but what appears to be a harmless cardboard box. Hmm...must be something crappy inside then. That makes sense, he probably wouldn’t do something that could get him in trouble, like actually hurting her. Alright, what kind of awful “gift” is this going to be…?

The box is packed to the brim. Not with one single thing, it seems, but maybe a whole bunch of things. The first thing she pulls out is a dress, definitely not her size but definitely her style. She would’ve bought this in a heartbeat if she’d ever seen it in a store. Underneath that is a jacket, with the words “Mage of Hope” unskillfully embroidered onto it. Makoto Naegi has bandaids on his fingers.

Next to the clothes is a pile of books. Not “Chicken Soup For The Soul” or some sort of “Take Back Your Life” hogwash, like she’d expect the guy to have 300 copies of, but rather books about robotics, about psychology, about serial killers and horrifying social experiments. Books that no Ultimate Hope would ever want to touch with a ten foot pole, but ones that Monaca already knows that she’s going to love reading.

Monaca doesn’t understand. She doesn’t understand at all. These are nice gifts. These are _wonderful_ gifts. She loves these. What’s going on? What’s he trying to pull?

“Do you like it?” the stupid hope man asks, still smiling like there’s nothing wrong in the entire world. What the...oh, now Monaca gets it.

“Yeah, here.” she says, shoving the box back towards him. He puts on a confused face. Ha, he didn’t expect her to see through it, huh?

“What…?” he whispers.

“You’re just going to take this stuff away later. That’s your prank or whatever, right? Just take the stuff now.” she tells him.

What!? No! Monaca, these things are for you! I’m not going to take them away, what are you talking about!? That’s awful!” he cries, pushing the box back into Monaca’s lap. And then it’s Monaca’s turn to be dumbfounded. She can’t seem to figure out what’s happening. She can’t sense any lies. 

This man...he actually...what? He...he went out and got stuff just for Monaca. For some evil little girl who’s been nothing but mean to him. He even...

She doesn’t understand. She doesn’t understand any of it.

And then, Makoto Naegi sits down next to her and pull her into a hug, shushing her and saying it’s ok. It takes that much for Monaca to even notice that she’s crying. She reaches a hand to try and stop the tears, but they suddenly start pouring out even more. What’s...what’s happening to her? Why can’t she stop? This is...this is Makoto Naegi! She can’t cry in front of this murderer! She cant…

“Hey, it’s ok...ssssh, it’s ok, it’s ok. Stop that now.” He says, pushing her batting hands away from her face. “It’s ok to cry. If you need to cry, then cry.”

And Monaca cries.


	12. A Project That Creates Smiles

In retrospect, there wasn’t really anything to it. Makoto Naegi was the ultimate good guy, he was just being nice to Monaca because being nice is his whole job. It was silly for her to think that there was some sort of ulterior motive. But whatever, she’s not used to good guys yet, it’s not her fault.

So with this realization, she began to accept the older man’s niceties, passive and uncaring. He probably didn’t mean anything special about it. Her breakdown probably hadn’t meant anything to him. And so she pushed it out of her head and went on as usual.

Or at least, she tried to.

But the moment Makoto got the idea that the little girl was “opening up” to him, he spread this information around like wildfire and encouraged everyone to try worming their way into her business. Damn it all.

At the very least, half the adults aren’t actually trying. The bitchy pink one, the white suited one with a stick up his ass, the angry punch man and many others all decided that she wasn’t worth the trouble. Good. She hates them all.

Unfortunately though, there are quite a few _other_ annoying assholes who’ve been bursting with anticipation to bug her, it seems. Yukizome, Asahina, Bandai...of course, she’s been forced to learn their names just from how many times they remind her. She pretends she doesn’t remember them anyways.

For some reason, Kirigiri and Togami have picked up trying to talk to her, too. Though they’re clearly more interested in getting information out of her. She humors Kirigiri sometimes, just for being less stupid and annoying than Togami. She kinda fun to talk to. Waaay more so than Gekkogahara, at least.

“So you’re saying that you think working on the side of hope is fun because it’s challenging?” She asks Monaca, listening to Monaca’s words without insisting that that’s not a nice way to think. Monaca nods happily.

“Well then...how would you feel about a challenging project that could put one of your stronger skills to use?” Kirigiri suggests. 

“Really? What do you mean by that?” Monaca asks, more than a little bit curious at the prospect of a new job that wasn’t the same battling and strategizing as always.

“Your brainwashing skill.” Kirigiri tells her. Within an instant, Monaca’s eyes light up like a christmas tree, and Kirigiri almost laughs.

The world suddenly becomes ten times more exciting as the Neo World Program is explained to Monaca. This drops off once she discovers that she’s going to have to work with Gekkogahara, but it’s still seven times as exciting as normal.

Her instructions: to program a system that will blur out traumatic memories and then add new ones that will be artificially built using deep sensory deprivation and virtual reality. It’s the coolest project she’s ever had _ever_ , and the adults around her have reactions varying between annoyance and endearment as she spins around in her chair squealing.

And then, things get even better. After she’s already 30 hours into her coding, Kirigiri and Hopey come down to see her. They tell her about their secret plan. 

Remnants of Despair, huh? Well if that’s the case, then Monaca should make it so that their memories get cut out for good. That would work better. 

They already had similar ideas, and so Monaca just reworks them to be better, and then goes back to working with her new secret objective in mind. This was so damn fun.

Despite having gotten one of her devoted rescuees to bring her food and water, Monaca failed to account for her need to sleep. She collapses from exhaustion after 52 hours, though nobody finds her until a while after that. Nonetheless, she wakes up in her bed, very confused and with a weird kink in her neck. Then she figures out what happened and feels annoyed instead.

Upon marching huffily into the computer lab, Gekkogahara sees her and starts insisting that Monaca go back to bed, and that she can handle things for right now. Monaca tells the dumb woman to mind her own business.

“As your therapist, I feel like it’s most certainly my buisness!” Her avatar asserts.

“Monaca didn’t ask.” Monaca growls, and rolls up once again in front of her computer. The annoying voice of Usami continues to pester her, and she ignores it until Gekkogahara finally decides to give up. She resists the urge to roll her eyes every time she sees the woman looking all worriedly at her.

Unfortunately for progress, Gekkogahara calls Bandai down to the lab once the sun sets and has Monaca dragged back to her room. Monaca screams out some harsh profanities upon hearing the door lock, but is only answered by a “Language, young lady.” from Bandai.

Monaca hates these fucking people.

A curfew? A _curfew!?_ It’s the goddamn apocalypse!

Nobody listens, though. So over the next month, Monaca is forced to only work on the project during ‘reasonable hours’. Unfair, is what it is!

She manages to get her portion of the work done eventually though, and subsequently returns to her normal war missions, though once and a while being asked to go help Gekkogahara carry her own weight. 

She’s also asked to keep an ear out for the whereabouts of the 77th class, and not to report any of it to stick-in-the-ass. She’s fine with that. Mr.Blind Optimism’s plan sounds fun, and she was already helping anyways.

It’s a surprise when she sees Mr.Servant’s name and face on the list. That guy was an Ultimate? Jesus, they were really grasping at straws for people near the end there, huh? 

Though not involving herself too much, she drops off some info for Kirigiri every once and awhile. Eventually, she’s watching them sail away on a boat with a bunch of psychotic terrorists. The man with the ridiculous cow mask asks where they’re going. Monaca says she has no idea. Hopey will probably pull this off fine, but she’s not going to risk putting another target on her back.

It’s kinda confusing when, a few days later, she sees all the televisions suddenly change to a single display. Even stranger when it announces the mutual killing game of the 77th class.

...Jeez, how’d they even manage to screw up that bad?


	13. The Truth Is, I Always Loved Them

Monaca’s been locked up. Why? Well first is because adults are stupid like that. Second is that she ratted out Kirigiri so she wouldn’t get in trouble and it backfired. So now she’s stuck trying to ignore the stupid demon while she yaks Monaca’s ear off about stupid dumb stuff that isn’t true, and all these dumb questions like “What’s the real reason you joined us, Monaca?”

Kirigiri also has this annoying habit of clicking her tongue, something that had been mildly irritating before she had to listen to it for hours on end, and is, by this point, completely excruciating. “I know it’s not because you were bored. Though I don’t doubt you’ve been having a lot of fun, you wouldn’t abandon your life’s work just for that.”

Of course Monaca would. Monaca isn’t an adult, she doesn’t need big complicated reasons for everything. But she doesn’t tell the demon how dumb and wrong she is. If Monaca dignifies her with a response, that means she’s lost.

“The others don’t believe it either. They’ve positied a few theories. Quite a few people have pointed out those scars you like to pretend away. No, not the ones on your arms. The scissor marks. Syo did that, right?”

What about it? You think Monaca’s pathetic enough to cry and run away over a few scratches!?

...Calm, Monaca. Be calm. She’s wrong. You don’t care!

“And no, before you say or continue to not say anything, I don’t think that’s it. If you were scared of death, all your other actions wouldn’t make sense, given that they all put you in such immediate danger. But anyways, I should make my point before you start pretending you’re asleep.” The demon jokes, like she expects Monaca to laugh or something. “I’ve read a lot of Miaya’s reports, you see.”

“Of course, most of her notes are vague interpretations of the things you say, since you so adamantly refuse to actually tell your therapist things that she can use to help you.”

Monaca hopes you can feel her eyes rolling at you through this wall, stupid demon.

“I think I’ve figured something out, though, reading through all that. You wanna know what I think about your reasons for joining us, Monaca?”

No.

“I think you feel guilty.”

Monaca tries very, very hard not to laugh, and she thinks she deserves at least some kind of award for how well she succeeds. But a few of her snickers make it through anyways, because _oh my god that’s so stupid._

“Oh, of course I didn’t mean guilt over slaughtering hundreds of people. I know you don’t care about that. I meant your team.” The demon elaborates. “You finished your successor, it didn’t work out the way you wanted it to, you felt despair, and were subsequently forced to confront the idea that you don’t actually like despair at all and only went along with the idea of it because Junko liked it. And with that security blanket gone, you suddenly felt oh so much worse about offing all the other kids.”

Monaca grinds her teeth together. “It’s not that deep, detective who-gives-a-shit. Monaca was just bored.”

“Ah yes, boredom, your favorite excuse for everything.”

“What the hell do you know?”

“The information I found in a file created by the world’s greatest therapist and psychologist.” Kirigiri remarks, clicking her tongue all the while.

“Well one, it’s rude to snoop. Two, Miaya is a stupid idiot who doesn’t know shit. The only reason she’s the best psychologist in the world is because the rest of them are dead.”

“I think she has you pegged quite well, actually.”

“Oh? So what else does she think she knows about me?”

“You hate yourself, there’s nothing in the world you like more than positive attention, and you lie to yourself about your own motivations on such a constant basis that you probably don’t actually understand what they are.” Again, the stupid tongue clicking.

“What are you even trying to accomplish?” Monaca grumbles.

“I just want you to answer me truthfully, Monaca. Why did you join us?”

“Because! I! Was! Bored! It’s that simple! Stop looking into it, there’s nothing to see!”

“Very coolheaded response. I’m really feeling how little you care about this issue right now.”

Wait, fuck! That’s right! Monaca wasn’t supposed to say anything or she’d lose! _Fuuuck!_

Ugh, this is all so- Why doesn’t she just-! “I don’t feel guilty, you hear me!? I don’t! Not one bit! I don’t care about no stupid friends, ok!?...Because they’re _not_ my friends! Pawns! Nothing but pawns! I don’t miss them at all! Just shut up already!”

"Funny you should say that, Monaca, because I never called them your friends, nor did I ask if you missed them. I think the fact that you did speaks for itself."

Ugh! Stupid fucking demon! Stupid demon, stupid eyes, stupid stupid stupid! Why are they leaking!? Why does this keep happening!? UUUUUGH!

“Why are you even saying any of this!?”

“Why are _you_ so mad at the very suggestion that you care about other people?”

“Because it’s stupid and you’re stupid!”

“Well I guess it’s good you stopped me there, then, I had a couple hundred possible ideas that I was planning to toss at you to see if you reacted. It’d be a shame if you had to listen to all that stupid.” The demon clicks her stupid tongue again and Monaca wants to cut it out.

“...” Monaca doesn’t say anything. She already let the stupid demon think that she’s won, she’s not giving any more fuel to the fire. She’ll just ignore her again and let the dumb woman enjoy her stupid fake-ass victory. Monaca can get her back later or something. Besides, she’d just wanted to piss Monaca off to get back at her for being a snitch. That’s all.

It’s not like she’s actually right or anything.


End file.
